What A Character Redesign Could Mean for the “Sonic the Hedgehog” Film
When the Sonic the Hedgehog trailer first hit the internet, the collective response was…less than positive. Taking SEGA’s main IP aside, the film doesn’t look good on its own. The CGI by and large is unimpressive, and the script already seems particularly bad. However, what shocked fans the most was Sonic’s “modern” redesign. It was… well, you can just see for yourselves.
The design was so unpopular, in fact, that the Jim Fowler – the film’s director – stated on Twitter that the titular character would get a total redesign. That’s a bold move, considering the film is coming out in November later this year. Surely recreating a CGI character, especially one that will have as much screen time as Sonic, will take a lot of time and money, right?
Well, we can do our best to estimate the time and cost of such a feat by looking a few years back at a little Warner Bros film calledJustice League.
Near the end of the film’s original production, Zach Snyder had to step back from the production. Joss Whedon was hired to finish the job, but he had some creative differences with how the film was going. That’s why he called the cast back to do reshoots for major portions of the film.
The problem? Henry Cavill – i.e. Superman – was already in production for another film, and he was contractually obligated to have a mustache for the part. Paramount wouldn’t give Warner Bros any help, so the team was forced to film with Cavill’s mustache and digitally remove it themselves. This ended up being a huge chunk of the $25 million used to do the reshoots, and took nearly five weeks of post-production.
“Justice League Poster FINALLY Adds Superman!” by Ant-Man (CC BY-SA 2.0)
$25 million, for one character’s mustache. Imagine doing an top-down redesign of a whole character. Now, budgets for these movies have varying ranges, but a pretty standard one falls in the $90 million to $125 million range. Doing this type of work will put the film way over budget, and the film isn’t likely to make that money back based on the poor reception thus far.
This disaster is truly sad, especially because Sonic is such an icon in video game culture. His blue mug has appeared in video games (obviously), TV shows, crossover games, comics, and yes movies. It wouldn’t be surprising if you found a slot game featuring him on one of the sites listed on Canada’s most popular bonus site, Bonus.ca which finds the best real-money casinos with bonuses. These sites have all types of licensed content, and Sonic could very well be featured there.
That’s not the only fiasco to happen this year in film either. Detective Pikachu nearly had a similar reception, but the movie’s charm and spot on humor eventually won fans over. The verdict is still out on Aladdin, whose Genie – portrayed by Will Smith – is nothing short of creepy. CGI has gotten significantly better over the past few years, but its still not enough to make these live-action monstrosities look good. Can we just go back to classically animated films, please?
Featured Image: One of several great Sonic movie fan edits.Thirsty4MACACO/Twitter
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Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.
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